Corn (and Other Eats) in the U. S. A.

The Best Dishes from Seven Up-and-Coming Chefs

It seems to me that the competition is over, and we've got the bragging rights: The U. S. A. is now the gastronomic center of the world. I say this not because France, Italy, Spain, and Japan haven't legitimate claim to the title but because right now the U. S. is far more influential--both at the haute-cuisine and casual-dining levels--with far more diversity, excitement, and modernity in our restaurants than in the rest of the world's combined.

Then again, we'd probably win the chefs' sweepstakes by sheer dint of numbers. Fact is, not only do we have more serious restaurants than any other country, but we have a swelling supply of brilliant young chefs appearing in kitchens year after year. Here are a handful to keep your eye on.

--John Mariani

NEW YORK

In New York, where the competition is hottest, there are many young chefs making their mark, but I've been most impressed by Frank Deletrain, who at Tropica (200 Park Avenue; 212-867-6767) has proven himself a master of seafood cookery, guided by the bright flavors of the tropics in dishes like crab cakes with curried pickle slaw and Thai basil sauce, and Chilean sea bass with whipped taro and lime-coconut sauce.

Across town, at JUdson Grill (152 West Fifty-second Street; 212-582-5252), Bill Telepan seems able to divine the next thing everybody will want to eat, and it's just what he happens to be making, as in his house-made duck prosciutto with fava beans and parmesan cheese and his loin of lamb in a savory crust with steamed corn pudding and new potatoes.

MASSACHUSETTS

I'm also delighted with the work of chef David Reynoso at Cafe Louis in Boston (234 Berkeley Street; 617-266-4680). Under new management, the café's Mediterranean-and-Provençal-spiced Italian food is perfectly appropriate for its setting: The restaurant is located within that bastion of tasteful European clothing, the Louis Boston haberdashery. With dishes such as spaghetti with potatoes, sage, and Gorgonzola, and grilled Delmonico steak with sauce Bernini, Reynoso is doing some of the most authentic Midi food to be found this side of Gibraltar.

CONNECTICUT

Anyone who ignorantly bad-mouths restaurants in the burbs should pay attention to the delectable cooking done by Reza Khorshidi at Rebeccas in Greenwich, Connecticut (265 Glenville Road; 203-532-9270), whose mix of sharp flavors and brittle textures makes him exemplary of modern American cuisine. Try his Maine lobster buoyed by lemon-scented risotto and oven-dried tomatoes or his pan-seared breast of duck with Swiss chard, wild-rice blini, and--for once--an impeccably rendered, not-too-sweet raspberry sauce.

PENNSYLVANIA

The Philadelphia restaurant boom continues, and one of the city's hot spots right now is Rouge (205 South Eighteenth Street; 215-732-6622), where chef Peter Dunmire has put serious food on the table of a swank boîte that seems more hangout and nightclub than restaurant. Dunmire has a light touch with items like wild striped bass with almond-studded basmati rice and Thai coconut curry, and he coats soft-shell crabs with cornmeal, then sides them with mashed avocado and chipotle-pepper sauce.

TEXAS

Texas is home to some impressive young talent these days, not least Aaron Guest at Sabine in Houston(1915 Westheimer Road; 713-529-7190). Guest knows how to pack a plate with flavor--I'd kill for a mess of his wild-boar stew with Texas blackberries and braised leeks right now--and his cooking is entirely American: beef hash with poached eggs, fried oysters with hopping-John flapjacks, crawfish-shrimp potato cakes, and marvelously unusual chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry grits for dessert.

Up north in Dallas, in the intimate, exquisitely elegant Hotel St. Germain (2516 Maple Avenue; 214-871-2516), chef Michael Marshall seems set for local, then national, stardom, with his seven-course dinners that may begin with a cauliflower-saffron soup with chive essence, move on to tangerine-tinged breast of pheasant with braised red cabbage, and end with chocolate-espresso flan.

A FEW OTHERS WHO ARE REALLY COOKING

MARC MURPHY, La Fourchette, 1608 First Avenue, New York; 212-249-5924. Anywhere but New York, this French contemporary would be the tops in his class.

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